updated 02:10 pm EDT, Thu May 10, 2007

E-paper becomes practical

The company behind Sony's Reader e-book, E Ink, has announced the production of a new form of e-paper that should dramatically improve appearance and performance. E-paper is often criticized for being dim and slow to refresh; the new technology, called Vizplex, increases brightness by up eight percent over previous E Ink offerings, and has had its average switch speed cut from 1.2 seconds down to 740ms. The top speed may be as fast as 260ms.

There should also be more tonal range in images, since greyscale levels have been doubled from four to eight. The first Vizplex displays will begin production this summer, and will come in five different sizes, ranging from 1.9 to 9.7 inches. Even this is an improvement, since E Ink had previously been limited to six-inch screens. [viaMobileRead]